Los Angeles di notte. Quante volte l'abbiamo vista, sullo schermo? Ore e ore di macchine che sfrecciano su strade lunghe e tutte uguali, dove sembrano accadere le cose più bizzarre: penso istintivamente a Into the Night di John Landis (1985) e al più recente Drive di Nicolas Winding Refn (2011). La distesa immensa delle luci di LA fa talmente parte del nostro immaginario collettivo che quando un giorno (o meglio, una notte), ti capita di vederla sul serio dall'aereo, ti sembra di essere davanti allo schermo di un cinema, e che tutto quello lì sotto non sia reale ma una semplice proiezione della tua mente. LA, nella mia esperienza, è in effetti la città più irreale in cui mettere piede. E' la città in cui, se entri all'ufficio informazioni per chiedere un'indicazione, te la daranno dando per scontato che tu sia in macchina e, quando scoprono che non è così, ti guarderanno come se fossi appena atterrata da Marte. LA è la città in cui tutti i sogni, così come tutti gli incubi, possono diventare realtà. Nightcrawler di Dan Gilroy è una storia che ha decisamente più a che fare con i secondi.
Louis (Jake Gyllenhaal) e Nina (René Russo)
Louis Bloom è un trentenne alla ricerca di lavoro. L'iniziativa e la parlantina non gli mancano, ma le opportunità scarseggiano. Una notte, sul luogo di un incidente d'auto, osserva un paio di operatori TV che filmano la scena per poi rivenderla al canale che offrirà loro di più. Bloom ha una rivelazione: ecco quello che vorrebbe fare nella vita. Detto fatto, acquista una telecamera e si sintonizza sulle frequenze della polizia per sapere dove accadono incidenti, incendi, omicidi. La sua ambizione e la sua sfrontatezza gli permettono di dare inizio ad una brillante carriera. Resta solo da capire fino a che punto Bloom è pronto a spingersi per ottenere quello che vuole. Ed è proprio lì che il sogno americano si trasforma in incubo.
Nightcrawler si iscrive in una lunga tradizione di film americani sulla cattiva influenza e il cinismo dei mass media, basti pensare a due classici:Ace in the Hole di Billy Wilder (1951) e Network di Sydney Lumet (1976). La figura di Louis Bloom è assolutamente geniale: trentenne che, per sua stessa ammissione, passa la sua vita su internet, è il prodotto perfetto della società attuale. Parla come se fosse uscito da un corso di marketing per corrispondenza, è lucido ed efficace sui suoi obiettivi e da manuale nel gestire il suo più volte citato "business plan". E' anche un mostro, ma questo Bloom sembra ignorarlo. E' talmente obnubilato dal raggiungimento dei suoi obiettivi, che si è dimenticato di essere umano. Non solo non ha mai un dubbio sui suoi atti e sulla sua vita (anche se vita è una parola grossa, nel suo caso), ma si stupisce moltissimo che gli altri non si comportino come lui. Bloom è al di là del cinismo, è semplicemente agghiacciante, è in una no man's land di cui è davvero pauroso scoprire l'esistenza.
Lucida follia: Jake Gyllenhaal nel ruolo di Louis Bloom
Dietro la macchina da presa, per la prima volta nella sua vita, c'è uno sceneggiatore "di mestiere" di Hollywood, tale Dan Gilroy, che dimostra di conoscere bene quello di cui sta parlando ed ha una mano davvero felice nel filmare sia la notte di LA che quella interiore del suo protagonista. Nella parte di Louis Bloom, in quella che ad istinto citerei come l'interpretazione dell'anno, c'è un attore che se continua così ne vedremo delle belle: Jake Gyllenhaal. Quasi trasfigurato: la faccia scavata, gli occhi famelici, il corpo ossuto, sembra essere abitato dalla follia del suo personaggio. E' perfetto dall'inizio alla fine, senza sbavature, senza un sospetto di gigioneggiamento. La sua è un'interpretazione scarna ed ossessiva che lascia impauriti ed ammirati. Accanto a lui, nella parte del suo assistente (una figura davvero notevolissima), un ottimo attore inglese che di nome fa Riz Ahmed, e un'altrettanto brava (e invecchiata normalmente, ah, ma allora esiste, a Hollywood!) René Russo nel ruolo della cinica responsabile del canale Tv a cui Bloom vende i suoi pezzi.
Louis (Jake Gyllenhaal) e Rick (Riz Ahmed)
Il marcio di Hollywood non è mai stato così esaltante, credete a me. Correte a vederlo.
Sometimes, I get interested in a film-maker through an actor.
It has been the case for Nicolas Winding Refn, who I discovered thanks to my passion for Mads Mikkelsen. Besides the Pusher trilogy, the two made together a very strange film called Valhalla Rising. On paper, Winding Refn doesn’t have much to please me. His cinema is famous for being extremely violent and I’m famous for being extremely irritated by violence on screen. But, as it is often the case in this life, sometimes we like things we are not supposed or we don’t expect to like.
Nicolas Winding Refn and Mads Mikkelsen on the set of Valhalla Rising
I guess his cinema attracts me because it’s made of opposites: his movies are almost silent or too filled with words, the main characters are real heroes or complete losers and the most romantic scenes can be immediately followed by the most violent ones (Drive's elevator scene docet). Violence in Winding Refn movies is never cold, though. This is why I think it’s bearable. It is always driven by emotions, it’s coming from the evident flaws of human beings, and very often it’s perpetrated on awful kind of people to get justice (well, ok, I admit it: it’s a very primitive kind of justice).
Also, I have to confess I really enjoy Winding Refn’s interviews: he is always very funny, interesting, confused, and completely crazy. Apparently, he is teetotal, colour blind and dyslexic. As a bonus, his father is the editor of Breaking the Waves by Lars Von Trier. There are enough elements to become a fan, as far as I’m concerned.
Nicolas Winding Refn
Winding Refn became a mainstream film-maker just a couple of years ago via the movie Drive, where Ryan Gosling found his consecration as an actor. Having particularly liked to work together, the two decided to team up for another movie, which has been selected for the competition at this year’s Cannes Film Festival: Only God Forgives. Since Drive became kind of an iconic movie, many were waiting for their new collaboration. I have the feeling, from what I wrote in many critics these days, that people have been disappointed by it, but I didn’t.
Nicolas Winding Refn and Ryan Gosling on the set of Only God Forgives
In fact, the thing I liked about Only God Forgives, is that it is the absolute anti-Drive.
So, if you want to see Drive 2, well, forget about it. While the guy played by Gosling in Drive was a powerful one, in this one he’s powerless and sexually impotent (as it was the case for Mikkelsen in Pusher 2). Julian is supposed to run a drug dealing business (the movie is set in Bangkok) but he isn’t tough enough. He is subjugated by his eldest brother and, when this one is massacred for having raped and killed a 16 years old girl, Julian is not able to take care of his vengeance, as his (lovely!) mother asks him to. And last, but not least, he also has an enormous Oedipus complex: the guy is a complete disaster, I assure you. The only thing the driver and Julian has in common, is that they are not very talkative kind of guys. I read that Gosling and Winding Refn are dreaming of making a silent movie together, one day, and I hope that day will be soon.
Ryan Gosling as Julian
And while in Drive the music was a super important element of the movie, with a bunch of songs that stayed in the collective imagination, in Only God Forgives the music is obscure, obsessive, and the only hits are the pathetic, melodic Thai songs performed in karaoke restaurants by the real hero of the story: Chang. This man is a retired policeman, a wizard of the sword, a silent guru and a merciless avenger, whose presence (real and unreal) will haunt Julian for the whole movie.
Vithaya Pansringarm as Chang
The other star of the movie is my favourite character: Crystal, probably the most awful mother on screen ever, played in an exceptional way by a very intelligent actress, KristinScott-Thomas. Usually hired to embody sophisticated, ultra-bourgeois, complex women, Winding Refn had the brilliant idea to transform her in a monstrous creature, a modern Medea dressed in Versace (the resemblance with Donatella Versace is actually pretty scary), a real bitch, able to waste his son’s life in the space of a couple of sentences (the dinner scene is absolutely to die for).
Kristin Scott-Thomas as Crystal
The movie builds up very slowly, obliging the audience to hold back the rhythm, to quit defences, and be ready to enter into the story and into this dark, gloomy, ultra-violent world. You can take it or you can leave it, but if you are patient enough, you'll be rewarded by many unforgettable scenes (oh, the Thai child in the weelchair!).
Filmed in a spectacular way, Winding Refn confirmed his talent for an astonishing mise-en-scène, somewhere between Scorsese and Lynch with a twist (in this Far-East location) of Wong Kar-Wai. But if the Hong-Kong film-maker was in the mood for love, it is clear that the Danish one is more in the mood for vengeance.
As usual... forget about Oscars, Baftas, Golden Globes, Golden Lions, Golden Palms, Golden Bears, Césars, or any other Cinema award you can think of. The most prestigious and most exclusive one, the ZAZIE D'OR, strikes back, ready to let you know what was the very BEST of Cinema in 2011! Ladies and Gentlemen, the winners are...
The Zazie D'Or for BEST PICTURE 2011 goes to ONCE UPON A TIME IN ANATOLIA by Nuri Bilge Ceylan (Turkey) This is not just a movie, this is a metaphysical experience. Ceylan drags us into a journey through the Anatolian landscape at night to let us realize at the end of it that we have made a trip into the deepest part of our souls. Without bothering God, Job's invectives, dinosaurs, and the earth seen from the moon, he talks about the beauty, the mystery and the pain of our existences in a way impossible to forget. A Masterpiece. A real one.
The SPECIAL ZAZIE D'OR 2011 goes ex-aequo to A SEPARATION by Asghar Farhadi (Iran) The struggles of this couple in modern Iran is one of the most intelligent and subtle tales ever seen on screen . You suddenly understand more about this country and its religious issues than if you have read tons of books about it. Dialogues are amazing, actors to die for, this is just unmissable.
and to SHAME by Steve McQueen (US/UK) The descent to hell of a sex addict in a cold and alienating New York brings back the golden couple of contemporary cinema: British film-maker Steve McQueen and his partner in crime Michael Fassbender prove, after their outstanding film debut Hunger, to be here to stay. Lucky us!
The Zazie D'Or for BEST DIRECTOR 2011 goes to NICOLAS WINDING REFN for DRIVE (US) This film-maker elevate the simple act of driving to the rank of sublime art. First time in my life that I thought it was pity not to have a driving licence. Mesmerizing! (and Ryan Gosling does the rest)
The Zazie D'Or for BEST ACTRESS 2011 goes to ZOE HERAN for TOMBOY by Céline Sciamma (France) This incredibly young actress (12 years old) playing a girl pretending to be a boy is not only credible but absolutely PERFECT in the role. Her talent let me speechless. Chapeau!
The Zazie D'Or for BEST ACTOR 2011 goes to MICHAEL FASSBENDER for SHAME by Steve McQueen (US/UK) The best performance of the year by far. And if you can't see it, you're blind.
The Zazie D'Or for BEST SCREENPLAY goes to AKI KAURISMÄKI for LE HAVRE (France/Finland) & The Zazie D'Or for BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY goes to TIMO SALMINEN for LE HAVRE by Aki Kaurismäki (France/Finland) Finnish genius Aki Kaurismäki delivers a movie about immigration and solidarity in his own particular, irrisistible style. It is helped in doing so by long-life collaborator Timo Salminen, the maestro of the kaurismäkian light. The world like it should be...
The Zazie D'or for BEST ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK goes to ALEX BEAUPAIN for LES BIEN AIMES by Christophe Honoré (France) French director Christophe Honoré and his alter-ego musician Alex Beaupain definitively are the Jacques Demy/Michel Legrand of modern era. Every single song is a little jewel and all the actors are amazing singers (Catherine Deneuve, Chiara Mastroianni, Louis Garrel!). Special mention to the song inspired by Morrissey!
The Zazie D'Or for BEST DOCUMENTARY 2011 goes to RITALS by Sophie and Anna-Lisa Chiarello (Italy/France) The story of four Italian brothers emigrating from Southern Italy to France becomes the epic, moving story of a family and its own legacy. What does it mean to belong to a country? What is the price you pay for leaving your own terra and the people you love to go looking for a better life in another place? This beautiful, powerful documentary tries to answer to these questions and so much more... Bravissime Sorelle Chiarello!!!
The JEREMY IRONS PRIZE (Man of my life Award) for 2011 goes to MICHAEL FASSBENDER (German/Irish Actor) Che ve lo dico a fare???!!! Michael, as you know, the only way to receive this award is to knock at my door. I am a bit worried because the prizes are piling up at my place: I already have here for you the Man of my life Award 2009, now the 2011, not to mention the Zazie D'Or for Best Actor 2011. I mean, you really should stop by. The sooner, the better, my dear...
Something is rotten in the State of California, and if it is a Danish
guy to declare it, you should believe him, especially if his name is Nicolas
Winding Refn.
The no-name hero of his movie Drive lives in LA and works as a stuntman during
the day and as a getaway driver of crimes at night. And he is very good at what
he does. All the rest, it’s a mystery: no family, no friends, and apparently no
past life. He is a solitary and silent man. One day, he meets by chance Irene,
a young neighbour, and her little children Benicio, and his existence is
transformed. When Irene’s husband comes back home from jail, it is easy for the
driver to accept of being involved in a dangerous hold-up: it is just by doing
so that the criminals, to whom Irene’s husband owes money, will leave the
woman and her son alone. Useless to say, things will be a bit more complicated than
expected…
This is the movie of the consecration for Winding Refn, a Danish angry
young man (he was born in Copenhagen in 1970) who is considered one of the most
original and interesting talents of European cinema. He built his reputation
through tough and personal movies like the trilogy Pusher, the chilling thriller
Fear X and two movies of stylized violence like Bronson and Valhalla Rising,
often using as his alter ego the more-than-amazing Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen.
Awarded of the Best Director Prize at the last Cannes Film Festival, Drive is surely
less uncompromising and more mainstream than all his other movies, but it is by
far the most enjoyable one.
For somebody who doesn’t have a driving licence (apparently he failed
the test 8 times), Winding Refn has an incredible ability of showing the beauty
and the thrilling sensation you can feel seated at a four wheels. American
cinema is packed with spectacular and often unbelievable scenes of car racings,
but the ones filmed here have a more subtle and simple taste. The filmmaker
doesn’t want to show off; he just wants us to enter into the driver’s universe in
a smooth but gripping way. I really like the silent characters of Winding Refn
cinema: like the One-Eye of Valhalla Rising, the driver lives his life more through
images than through words. He is watching carefully what’s going on, often a mystical
witness of the absurdity of life, inhabited by a wisdom that puts him on a
different level. As many silent, charismatic and solitary heroes of American
cinema (Clint Eastwood, are you there?), the driver played so wonderfully by
Ryan Gosling has the astonishing quality of being redeemed by love but haunted
by violence.
To the surprise of many, I will dare to define Drive as an
incredibly romantic movie. In this sense, the elevator scene is the most
beautiful and pivotal one: in an elegant, almost old-style slow motion, the man
turns to kiss Irene, suddenly illuminated by a perfect light, and his arm protects
her from the presence of a third presence in the elevator. The person is a
criminal, and after few seconds he will be knocked down by the animal and
brutal violence of the same man. The representation of violence in Winding Refn
movies, clearly influenced by the cinema of Martin Scorsese, Brian De Palma and Michael Mann,
has Kitanesque’s nuances: is rapid, merciless and stylish (with forks, instead
of chopsticks, in the eyes). Another essential element of Drive is the music,
in various moments invading the screen like a real form of life, expressing
things like a dialogue would do.
And then the cast: I already declared my love for Ryan Gosling in my
post about Blue Valentine (http://leblogdezazie.blogspot.com/2011/04/new-york-trilogy-blue-valentine.html), so I don’t have much to add on this. His career
choices are simply perfect. The other brilliant presence in the movie is the
one of Bryan Cranston, the cherished actor of the TV series Breaking Bad, who
masterfully built his character in just few scenes. Also the villains are not
bad: Albert Brooks and Ron Perlman are scary and magnetic in the right way. On
the female side, Christina Hendricks (the Joan of Mad Men) has a too short role
to say something interesting about her, while I have to make here a declaration, and not a loving one, about Carey Mulligan: I can’t stand her. Since the very first time I saw her on
screen I asked myself why this girl is considered a good actress. She pretends
to be deep but she is not, she pretends to have a complete range of expressions
but she doesn’t, she wants to look smart but she just looks unbearable. Her way
of acting is unbelievably boring, and I mean, she is not even stunningly gorgeous (quite
the opposite, as a matter of fact). Why is she on a silver screen? Maybe I am missing the point, but can
somebody explained me why is she becoming so famous and why is she working with such good film-makers? All this remains a mystery to me. Should I finally make up my mind and get the driving license I never even tried to have? I asked myself at the end of the movie. Well, if Ryan Gosling is giving private driving lessons, I promise: I will serioulsy think about that...
